


Sleepless Nights

by MaskedShipper



Series: Learning to Trust [3]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1940s, Adjusting to Life After the War, Coping Mechanisms, Domestic Fluff, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Tinkering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:46:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24496675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaskedShipper/pseuds/MaskedShipper
Summary: Sometimes when Jack couldn’t sleep, he fiddled and tinkered with broken watches. More and more, Daniel joined him at the kitchen table on late-nights when it happened, sipping a mug of tea and pouring a mug of bourbon for the other as he quietly watched.
Relationships: Daniel Sousa/Jack Thompson
Series: Learning to Trust [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1769266
Comments: 5
Kudos: 47





	Sleepless Nights

Sometimes when Jack couldn’t sleep, he fiddled and tinkered with broken watches. It was unfortunately predictable for him to be smart enough for even the foreign brands (because what _wasn’t_ he good at?) but it was still odd to see a man who usually favoured a hard fist to the face over a scientific approach be so… meticulous. 

It was a sight to behold, certainly. More and more, Daniel joined him at the kitchen table on late-nights when it happened, sipping a mug of tea and pouring a mug of bourbon for the other as he quietly watched. 

Jack was careful and methodical as he took it apart. He kept his tool kit to the right, his drink to the left, and the watch would be dismantled, almost piece by piece, and set on the kitchen table between them. The tools might look silly, so small in such large hands, if Jack didn’t wield them so well, aligning the cogs and gears, polishing the glass and crown. 

Daniel liked to admire Jack’s fingers first: calloused from their usual work but impossibly gentle, strength lurking beneath corded muscles but controlled and carefully delicate now, with such fragile components at his mercy. He liked to watch Jack’s face, too--the way his brows knit together, or how his eyes darkened in their focus, the hard lines of his features softened despite the determined concentration. There was pride to be taken in this work, in restoring the usefulness of something broken, but there was no narcissism in the way he worked, only a quiet, certain confidence, shoulders taut in anticipation and hair disheveled from running his fingers through them between sips of his drink. 

But it was the end result, usually after a few nights of work, with daylight spilling through the kitchen window and softening the usual stoic presence that was Jack Thompson, that got Daniel’s heart swell with pride and affection, pumping his blood too warm and too fast in the best way. When Jack was done, when the watch was put back together and he held it up to the light, the quiet _tick-tick_ of functioning gears--that was when Jack’s grin shined, bright and uncensored, a laugh at the corner of his lips, the smile so large that his eyes crinkled with the force of it. 

When his eyes met Daniel’s he always looked surprised, like he hadn’t realised the other was there, and his smile would turn sheepish for a moment before he scoffed, playing off the pride he no doubt thought was silly with a roll of his eyes, but the damage was done. Daniel echoed his smile too brightly to ignore, and he came closer to steal a kiss--tender and sweet and lingering, before they got to work starting their day. 

And when the men at work commented on Daniel’s new watch, his smile was always a dangerous shade of happy, maybe too suspicious, but when he caught Jack’s own secret smile aimed his way, he knew it was worth the risk.


End file.
